AP 0281: Is It Worth Trying to Compete In a Saturated Podcast Market?

AskPat 281 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 281 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.

We have another great question today from Alex, which is sort of a follow up from yesterday. Not from the same person, but both of them had to do with podcasts. Yesterday's, in Episode 280, was about “Should I go blog, or should I go podcast?” Today's is, “Well, if you're going to go podcast, how do you compete?”

So, before we get to Alex's question specifically, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is ZipRecruiter.com. So, check it out if you're looking to add anybody else into your business to help you with your business like an employee or somebody on staff. Whether you are a solo entrepreneur or you are a business of hundreds, the best way to do it is to go to ZipRecruiter.com, because you put your job description there of the type of person you are looking for, and they will send that job description out to fifty plus job sites for you with a couple clicks of a button. They will also filter and find the best candidates for you as well. So, you don't have to waste time going to all those different sites; ZipRecruiter.com will do it for you. All you have to do is go to ZipRecruiter.com/pat and you can make that magic happen for you. Again, ZipRecruiter.com/pat. Sweet. So, let's get to today's question from Alex.

Alex: Hi Pat, my name is Alex and I've a question for you. So, for the past four or five years I've been running an online business-related website. I concentrate on the affiliate marketing and related stuff. Now, to be honest this venture has been on and off for me. Only for the past year and a half or so I've been getting really serious about it and working a lot smarter and harder on the whole business itself.

Now, I've been listening to podcasts for a few years as well and I would really love to have my own podcast because I find it so much easier to communicate through a podcast, and tell people your experiences, and suggest things and reveal what works for you and what doesn't work . . . Well you get the drill, right?

So, the question is, there's so many podcasts right now in this niche of online business and they're actually huge brands starting podcasts. I see it's really, really hard to compete with them because, well, first of all there are so many, and a lot of them already have a pre-built audience. Not necessarily podcast audience, but they have huge email lists, they have a huge social network following. So, it's a lot easier for them to get fans and just people listening to their podcast.

So, once again, there's the question: Do you think it's worth starting a podcast on online business right now in 2015? Thanks a lot for your answers, I really appreciate everything you do, and congratulations on 1-Day BB. I've been listening to that in the past few days. So, thanks again.

Pat Flynn: Alex, thank you so much for the question today and I really appreciate the kind words about 1-Day Business Breakthrough; it's going extremely well. Me and Chris are having a great time. Another episode just went live today. For everybody else out there listening, you can go to 1DayBB.com to check it out. You can also check out our live event happening in a couple months; actually we're just putting all the touches together for that right now. So, that's at 1DayBB.com/live.

But anyway, Alex, this question is about you and helping you out. So, you are thinking about starting a podcast: Awesome. Podcasts are hot right now, and that's why everybody's getting into it. But when everybody gets into something it can be very competitive. I will put it into perspective for you. Currently—and this is just sort of an educated guess based off of some recent statistics that I heard—currently there's probably about half a million podcasts out there, active, overall, in all niches.

Whereas there's over 500 million blogs. So, 500,000 versus 500,000,000. So, that right there will tell you there's still a lot of room in the podcasting world. And when you think about how many websites there are about online business in the blogging website space, it might not seem as intimidating to get into the podcasting arena and that's for a few reasons. I mean, there's a lot of room still. And there are big brands coming out, but there are also a lot of single-person brands coming out with podcasts now that are doing really, really well and that are crushing some of those bigger brands. Some of those bigger brands don't do it right. It's just the honest truth.

And what's cool about it if you're just by yourself is you can bring a fresh perspective, and you are not tied down to any sort of standards with your business, in terms of procedures with going up to the higher-end guys to make sure they approve everything. I mean, the podcast is truly your own thing. That's your advantage as sort of a solo entrepreneur if you're by yourself in the podcasting world. You could do it however you want to do, this is your show. Obviously you have to follow federal laws and state laws and things like that, but you know what I'm saying? You can have the show become whatever it is you want it to be.

That is something that's really important to understand, because you don't want it to be like any other show that's out there. So, is it worth starting a podcast? Yes, absolutely, if you consider your position and how it stands out from everybody else that is out there—big brands, small brands.

Hopefully I've debunked the fact that “You have to be a big brand to succeed with your podcast.” You don't. You can be a small brand. You just have to be different and bring something fresh. So, that's actually your advantage, no matter what niche you're in. Your advantage coming in late is that you get to see what's out there already, what is working for people and adopting those certain things, but also what is not working or what's missing for a particular target market, and you can come in and deliver that.

Alex, my challenge to you, and to everybody else out there is: How can you come into this space differently?

And it might take a lot of time, and it's time that you need to spend or else you're just going to do something else that somebody else has already done. You're going to interview the same people, you're going to have the same format of another show and you'll always be second best. No. You want to bring something fresh. And say “Man, Alex's show is awesome because he's the one who”—fill in the blank. See what I mean? He's the one who—whatever. Whatever that thing might be, be creative, too. So, step out of the box, think creatively and you'll deliver some good stuff.

And iTunes is still at a point where the little guys can still get some recognition. I know a lot of people, especially because I'm a part of groups like Podcasters' Paradise—through John Lee Dumas—and Entrepreneur on Fire and Podcasters' Hangout. All those cool communities on Facebook, as well. There are a lot of podcasters who don't have large audiences or social media followings that are getting decent numbers of downloads. Now, they're not going to be millions of downloads, or at least not yet or right in the beginning. But if you imagine 1,000 downloads, which isn't that much compared to some of those bigger brands, but if you compare that 1000 downloads virtually to a room, a physical room with 1,000 people . . . I mean you could literally change lives in that room if you were up on stage speaking in front of 1,000 people. That's what you're doing with a podcast, but you're doing it in an even more intimate way where people plug your voice into their ears and they're doing whatever it is, during the day or driving, and they're just focusing on you. So, even if the numbers are less, for that reason it's also worth starting a podcast. Because like you said, you can just get really clear with the message, and the voice, and the connection, and the relationship that you're building with your podcasting audience.

Going back to what I was mentioning earlier about iTunes, iTunes still does a lot of things that is equal among anybody who creates a podcast. For example, the opportunity to get into New and Noteworthy. Now, there's a few rules. You have to have great artwork, you have to have high-quality audio, and you just have to have good content in your show. That's it. Once you do that, within a couple weeks after you start your show, chances are, in all likelihood you will be in the New and Noteworthy section that is featured right there at the top of people's mobile devices when they go and see what's featured, or when they go on their desktop they see the logo there. That's why the cover art is important, because the logo is the first thing they see. So, keep that in mind.

You will get some exposure, you will be a part of that New and Noteworthy space or event, I guess you could say, for your podcast, which lasts for about eight weeks. After the eight-week mark you will have hopefully built some sort of momentum, climb rankings, and do that sort of thing.

Now, I will say and give you some tips in terms of rankings. Rankings are really important because they can give you that exposure. A lot of people like to see what's already being listened to and if you're just starting out that can be difficult. Well, you can make connections with other podcasters, other bloggers, and people in your network. You can create connections with people on your social media platforms and start to build buzz for this podcast that's coming out. If you want to set up a landing page and collect emails beforehand, so that on day one you can make a big bang with the launch of your podcast—that is what would be recommended. Because your podcast will rank based on the number of subscribers, number of downloads, and number of ratings and reviews within a short period of time.

So, you can compete with the larger brands if you play it smart and get all of those subscribers, and all of those downloads, and all those ratings and reviews in a very short time period. You can run a contest perhaps or a giveaway to have people, and entice people, to leave reviews and things like that, which is what me and Chris did for 1-Day Business Breakthrough. That's how we got our little podcast, and yes we have audiences already, but we were able to get to the top-twelve podcasts in all of iTunes in the U.S.

So, we beat out NPR and a bunch of other big brands. We beat Tim Ferriss's brand for a while, and Dave Ramsey. We were number one at Business forever, and it was awesome! So, it just shows you that if you play it smart and you calculate the timing and all that stuff right, you can make an impact and get new audiences listening to you. That would be worth it because if you keep continuing to provide that value to your listeners, they're going to share it. Hopefully you would take advantage of that too, to reach new audiences as well.

Of course, the people you interview—you could interview some of the same people that other people have already interviewed. But I would try to interview new people as well, because people are always looking for fresh stuff. If you wanted to expand your podcast even more, maybe it is worth getting somebody who's already been on a show, who you know shares whenever they're on podcasts. You can have them come on your show, share the story and, in all likelihood, they would share that and help grow your audience by sharing your podcast to their audience.

So, a bunch of tips all in a short period of time there, Alex, but I hope that helps you out. I appreciate the question very much: I know this is going to help a lot of people.

So, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, for those of you listening, you can go to AskPat.com. And just like Alex, if you get your question featured here on the show, you can get an AskPat t-shirt sent your way, free of charge, all on the house.

I also want to thank today's sponsor, which is ZipRecruiter.com. If you're looking to add an employee or a staff member to your business to help you with anything, whatever that job description is, give that job description to ZipRecruiter.com/pat. They'll put it out there to fifty or more job sites, so you don't have to do that yourself, and they will find the best candidates for you, all totally free. So, you've got to check it out. Go to ZipRecruiter.com/pat, and you can take advantage of ZipRecruiter.com's service. I know a lot of people here have already done that, and they love it. I mean, really, it's such a cool thing and it solves such a big, major headache for everybody. So, ZipRecruiter.com/pat.

Thank you so much; I appreciate your time today. As always, I want to end with a quote. Today's quote is, “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” That was from Sir Edmund Hillary.”It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”

Take care, and I'll see you tomorrow in the next episode of AskPat.